PoM 287
I could feel my wife feeling more amorous…but I wasn’t feeling that way.
Then I noticed a part of me that I had nearly forgotten about:
the child part that was overwhelmed by strong sexual advances from adults and, at that age, was not able to, or allowed to, say “No”.
I felt scared, bordering on terrified.
Fortunately, I have developed enough adult in me to be able to rescue the child when he is in trouble…and I did.
It’s tricky socially when I get triggered because I have to manage my internal conflict while not blaming the person I am talking to at the moment.
Before recovery, when I was clueless about what was going on, if I felt triggered I lashed out at whoever I was talking to, believing it was their fault…
Needless to say, that damaged a lot of relationships.
Now I know that “If I’m not the problem…there is no solution”.
PoM 288
Jo from Brazil who, along with my wife, runs the 6:00 am PrayerCall for the last several years this morning described the Peace of Mind offices as: “God’s daily newspaper”.
I kinda feel that way, too.
I promise to be your faithful daily news reporter and, as Hemingway would say “Just write one true sentence”, and present “ the facts and nothing but the facts”…with a touch of humor.
Steve D.
PoM 289
As I was running 10 miles today, across the Golden Gate Bridge, I looked down and I saw a great number of sharks. Something I have never seen before in the 20 years I have lived here. We had a terrific rain yesterday and perhaps that drove them inland. It felt ominous, yet confusing.
After one of our leader’s exclamation this morning, "This is like reading God's daily newspaper", I wanted to share it on the home page, below the two red buttons:
“God’s daily newspaper.“
Jo S. from Brazil
I ran it past David S. and Danielle. They both liked it, but Alona was incensed “You’re claiming yourself a prophet!”
I felt breathtaken. I was doing no such thing.
Just a guy doing his daily step 10th and 11th steps.
My wife was really insistent and she said if you say it “It’s cheap and braggy”.
I felt “cunned and baffled”, but I could tell she was telling the truth.
My thinking it was if there’s something new and good in the world, pass it on to whoever will listen and wants to get better. Who cares who gets credit?
It didn’t take long before I realized this was a flaw in my character….that I am unable to see something in people that I need to see.
The sharks made a little more sense to me then…
PoM 290
Matt D., the Administrative Director of All Addictions Anonymous is about to release a new pamphlet and was interested in my editorial feedback.
In the early 90’s SLAA asked to publish all my work, but I was too much of a punked-out, puffed-up, impossibly tyrannical “Artist” to get along with and I essentially told them to take a flying leap off a cliff when they wanted to “dumb down” my work.
In 2007 Food Addicts Anonymous asked me to rewrite their AWOL, which is a cavernous tome by which they do their step work.
I started with the 4th step and was very rigorous.
But Anne D., the cofounder of FA, said “ Steve, if I applied what you said I couldn’t have sex with my husband because I fantasize about other men when I do.
I was thinking “Lady, you may want to take a look at that”…but I was silent.
I need full rein to write exactly what I hear, which is one of the reasons we have PrayerCall, but Matt is a friend of mine, and I want to be of service to him.
So this time, as it says in in Psalm 39, “I will put a muzzle on my mouth” and confine my feedback to simple technical, syntactical, grammatical errors.
As Frank Zappa, who I knew, used to say…
“Just shut up and play the guitar”.
PoM 291
In response to a question about the relationship between prescription drugs and sex:
My first six years in recovery I used Limbitrol, a cross between Librium and Elivil, double strength, three times a day to manage my anxiety.
I knew perfectly well that it was rendering me partially impotent, but I didn’t mind because I believed it would dampen my sex drive, and reduce my cheating on my wife…which it did.
I feel really sad about that now because I was murdering my sexual feelings with drugs instead of working the program harder.
The Big Book says on page 70 “If sex is very troublesome, we throw ourselves the harder into helping others”.
Sex is such a problem for me, that I’ve had to devote my life to serving others the last 33 years.
But my greatest curse turned out to be my greatest blessing…
Serving others, according to Bill AA and Gandhi, is the greatest thing in life…They are right.